The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 11

Ok nri SECTION Cwvrwo MM, Dm Motnat Rtehtar ant Trlku December 30, 1984 iDcslUoincs Sitnbat) ftccitetcr REGISTER PHOTO DAVK) PETERSON Gedar Rapids' famed hotel faces revamp Lodging to presidents to become care facility 4 I0UA D0 V'1 Need advice, Chuck Long? AUDUBON, IA. For the first time in the four years I've been conducting occasional discussions at By JOHN CARLSON Of Tkt RnMw's Cr tvrM CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. The Roosevelt's death will come slowly, a piece at a time over the next couple of years. Those who remember her best say it's a sad way for a grand old hotel to die. Sam's Barber Shop in this western Iowa town of 2,800, we I called an emergency fc I session- It's also a sad time for those who re We had it Thurs-, the day after member the days when such hotels truly were glorious places catering to a guest's every whim.

s. a Hawkeyeiiuar i terback Chuck Lone The dark furniture was polished like mi ni dazzled the nation with his passing as he led his teammates to victory mirrors, the linen was pressed, the food was the best in town and bellboys stood tall and proud in their starched CHUCK LOMS over Texas in the Freedom BowL Old warriors still cling to spurs, saddles By KENNETH PINS 01 Ttit RntiiWi Aim linn AMES, IA. Talk about ingratitude. The final deployment of the legendary U.S. Horse Cavalry probably set the likes of Lightborae Harry Lee whirling in their graves.

The 26th Cavalry Regiment, known as the "Philippine Scouts," covered the World War II retreat down the Ba-taan Peninsula. "When they got to where they couldn't maneuver anymore," cringed the Rev. William Win-lock, "they slaughtered all the horses and fed them to the troops." Jumping jodhpurs! Col. Sherman Potter might exclaim. Let's not tell the public about that one.

Winlock does tell the public, but he'll take second place to no man in his love for the cavalry. A career Army man and Episcopalian priest who carries a "man about town" image in Ames, Winlock and a group of other former pony soldiers from the Cavalry's final days are keeping the Cavalry story alive through the U.S. Horse Cavalry Association. Horsing Around Every year the organization's 1,000 members gather at their museum in Fort Riley, for official business and unofficial horsing around, doing what they can to "keep the old traditions alive," Winlock says. Sporting a brushy white mustache that would shame that old Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt, Winlock is the official Iowa representative to the organization which seems destined, like the Cavalry itself, to fade into the setting sun.

In an age of superpowers armed to their nuclear teeth, there's something quaintly reassuring about an Organization dedicated to the memory of an era when weapons delivery systems were powered by oats. The U.S. Horse Cavalry Association is not a typical service organization, but then, Winlock, 60, is not your average clergyman. Born at Fort Bragg, N.Cj to a career military officer, he boarded a troop ship in his mother's arms at age 2 and traveled through the Panama Canal with his family to a CAVALRY 1 Please turn to Page 2B A- 1 his father's pre-World War II saber and an 1873 carbine: Spiscopaliati priest and cavalry enthusiast Father Wil On the wall is a poster of Winlock a gift from friends, liam Winlock sits oa a 70-year-old officer's saddle, holding Stanhope-area barn burner keeps evading police uniforms. The Roosevelt Hotel, in its day one of the grandest hotels in Iowa, will be dead, all right.

Maybe the old zing wasn't so apparent in recent years, and the worn edges were beginning to show. But the old timers say they're not going to forget the way things used to be, not for a long while anyway. How could they forget the night Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman slept in the place? Or the brutal 1948 love-triangle murder that brought reporters here from around the country? Or Mamie Eisenhower's ladies luncheon? Or the celebrity guests ranging from Arthur Godfrey to Cheryl Tiegs to Amelia Earhart? Or the 40 theme rooms, giving guests a choice of surrounding themselves with New Orleans, darkest Africa or becoming Roman emperors complete with their own private "throne" in the bathroom? "What a place it was," says Rob Cook of Cedar Rapids, who literally grew up in the place once owned by his family. "In that hotel, we had births, deaths, weddings, murders, affairs, movie stars and presidents of the United States. It was a city in itself.

It was truly spectacular. I'm sad to see it go." Hotel Becomes Care Facility The old hotel ofTCedar Rapids' First Avenue really isn't going anywhere. It just isn't going to be a hotel any longer. Owner Peter Bezanson announced earlier this month that he was selling the building to a group of investors who will remodel The Roosevelt into a "life care facility." Its rooms will be transformed into apartments for the elderly over the next two years. And when that transformation is complete, the grand old Roosevelt Hotel, a cornerstone of downtown Cedar Rapids since its construction in 1927, will cease to exist The Roosevelt went up thanks to the money of Chicagoan Edith Rockefeller McCormick, a product of two of the nation's wealthiest families.

Its cost was estimated at $800,000, and its 12 stories made The Roosevelt the tallest building in this part of the state. Rob Cook's family took over the 234-room hotel during the Great Depression and owned the Roosevelt until a bitter labor strike forced them to close down in January 1975. Bezanson, a group of local investors and Home-tels of America of Phoenix, pun chased the hotel two months later for about $1.6 million. The new owners began a massive remodeling job reducing the number of rooms from 234 to 190 and renaming the place the Roosevelt Royale. Low Occupancy Rate Bezanson bought out Hometels in 1979, renamed it the Roosevelt Hotel and continues its operation.

Bezanson also owns the nearby Stouffer's Five ROOSEVELT Please turn to Page 6B School bus drivers seek safety laws By NICK LAMBERTO ReeHter Steff Writer A barn burner is on the loose in the Stanhope area, but town, county and state investigators don't know how to The talk of Audubon indeed, the talk of all Iowa was whether Long should play another year for the Hawkeyes or skip his last collegiate season and sign a big, fat pro football contract. As always when I come here to my own sample precinct, we assembled the panel of regulars: Sam The Barber Kauffman, 49, because he owns the joint; Norma The Woman Mountain, 52, because in these modern times, there must be a woman in everything, and Dale The Farmer Edwards, 60, because no Iowa discussion is official unless a farmer is involved. I should note that, over the years, we've weighed and predicted everything from elections to football games to fashion trends, and the only time we've been wrong was when we let Sam persuade us that Gary Hart would win the Democratic presidential nomination. So we sat for two hours'chewing Long's dilemma from different angles: as parents with kids of our own, as fans, and as wiseacre adults sitting in a small-town barber shop. Plus, we had input from a half-dozen of Sam's customers.

Our conclusion? It was 3-to-l that Chuck Long should stay and play another year Jot the University of Iowa. Mind you, we're not saying he will, just that he should. Same goes for Jonathan Hayes, the Hawkeye tight end who is in a similar pickle. The only money-grubber, which is to say the only proponent, was Dale The Farmer. He said a lifetime of penny-pinching in agriculture influenced his idea that Long should take the money when it's offered.

He talked about Long risking injury if he plays another year of college ball, injury that could mean he'd never collect on a pro contract. And he got into a lengthy soliloquy about "black Poland Chinas and red Duroc hogs." When we asked what relevance that had for the Hawkeye quarterback's situation, he explained, "It's just some of my philosophy about life coming out. If I put problems in terms of hogs, it helps me figure things out better." Meanwhile, we three right-thinking romantics were countering that with another year in Iowa City, Long might win the Heisman Trophy, lead the Hawkeyes to the Rose BowL have another year of college fun before he goes into the workaday real world, take a strong and honorable stand for loyalty to teammates and school and ultimately wind up with an even fatter pro contract. Besides, we argued, pro ball is so boring. "That loyalty thing Sam keeps talking about is the one thing that bothers me about my position," said Farmer Dale.

Norma Mountain then talked about how Long should make his decision. "He could come here to Sam's and talk it out with us," she said. "But I think it'd be better if he'd talk to his parents and coach, sit down and write a letter to himself with all the pros and cons, put it away for a couple of days, get it back out, read it one more time and then make his choice. That's a good way to handle tough ones like this." And may the ghost of Nile Kinnick intervene. -J- Chuck Offenburger stop the firebug.

If it it By JONATHAN ROOS Kfilster Sttfl Writer On a cloudy but dry December afternoon, driver Marty Plecker was letting three children off his Highland School District bos at a farmstead There have been "at least 11 strange barn fires in the area," said Stanhope Fire Chief Edward W. Haman. "We had three in 1983 and then none again until hope five weeks apart in 1983, both with causes unexplained," Haman said. Said Michael Keefe of Mason City, an investigator from the state fire marshal's office: "We're really concerned that if it continues someone may get hurt The barn fires have been in isolated farm buildings away from houses people live in, but even so someone could get hurt or even killed in a car accident while rushing to the scene, or while fighting the fire." "We've Tried Everything" Hamilton County Sheriff Kenneth Farnham said: "It's getting rough. We've tried everything aerial surveillance, car patrols, neighborhood watches, offering rewards, having tue lasi six monins, when we've had a edward real rash of them haman eight since June 30.

1 would estimate at least $100,000 in damages. And we don't have one solid clue who's setting them." Besides the barn fires, "we had two house fires at the same house in Stan- south of Riverside when a truck filled with grain approached from the rear. Rather than stop for the school bus, which had its warning lights flashing and stop sign arm extended, the truck passed to the left as the girls were, crossing the paved county road in front of the bus. "I couldn't holler at them as they were already outside. I saw the truck) in the mirror, but there was nothing I could do about it It happened so fast" Plecker recalled, "li you can see it coming, I don't let the kids off.

But this guy was a long ways off, and I figured he'd stop." Instead, the grain truck drove around the bus at a speed of 25 to 30 mph, said Plecker. Luckily, the oldest child saw the truck as she reached the middle of the road and held back her sisters. The trucker also reacted by BUSES Child kidnap-murder rings myth, police say By FRANK SANTIAGO The most chilling of all theories to explain how America's children mysteriously disappear is that some are meetings with farmers to make them aware of the risk. There have been eight fires in the past six months, all at night, all in barns or corn cribs with no electricity and no one living close to the buildings." All of the fires have been within seven miles of Stanhope, a south-central Hamilton County town of 450 people. The most recent fire, on Dec.

8, was in a barn six miles south and one mile west of Stanhope. Though in Boone County, the fire still was in the area of responsibility of the 21-mem-ber Stanhope volunteer fire department The barn and its contents 4,000 bales of hay and 500 bales of straw were destroyed by the fire, which was reported about 6:10 p.m. by a neighbor. Owner Walter C. Anderson lives about a mile from the structure.

By the time firefighters arrived the building was engulfed in flames. "Lots of times there's nothing but a ball of fire or just ashes by the time we get there," said Haman, 39. "We've suspected arson from the start because there is no electricity involved and no other apparent reason like lightning or people working in the area and tossing matches or cigarettes away. "In some cases we've had enough left to determine that gasoline, fuel or an accelerant of some kind was used. That's why they burned so fast We found charring in some places when everything wasn't burned to ashes, and it shows arson was involved.

"But so far we just can't come up with a reason." Insurance Losses Haman estimated insurance payments on the burned barns and their contents have ranged from $50,000, where machinery and livestock were destroyed, to as low as $250 when an old, empty barn burned to the ground. Investigators have posted signs and held meetings to publicize the state fire marshal's Arson Hot Line (800-532-1459), which offers up to $5,000 for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of arsonists. In addition, Haman said, the Iowa Farm Bureau is offering $1,000 for information about barn fires on its members' farms. "It's going to be hard to catch the arsonist, unless someone comes up with a good tip and gets a reward for doing so," Haman said. Keefe, a state fire investigator for BARNS Please turn to Page 6B I Escaped murderer's parents say tbey wanted son to return to prison stolen, then sold into an underworld for sex, and finally murdered.

It unfolds this way: Children are photographed at a schoolyard, the pictures are put into a catalog, and a "customer," usually a By WILLIAM PETROSKI Reehter StefV Writer Phillip R. Lewis, a murderer who was arrested for failing to return to prison last week after a Christmas I believes her son, who disappeared Sept 5, 1982, when he was 12, was kidnapped and sold to pedophiles. Police officials said, however, that witnesses reported seeing something on the car seat but could not positively identify it The FBI and Canadian police have said no such organized child-abduction rings have been found. The assurances have done little to calm groups around the country, among them Des Moines' Stolen Children Are Reported Every Day (SCARED), that believe abductions by pedophiles go on under the noses of the law. After accumulating a vast store of Information about missing children in recent years, the same law enforcement agencies go a step further and say the evidence indicates the rings do not exist that the abductions are more likely the work of people living in the neighborhood or the community.

"There have been many allegations brought to our attention, and we've investigated them," said Lane Bonner, FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C. "But we haven't found such an organization. We have no hard evidence or intelligence to show that there is an organized ring of people going around this country to kidnap children." Statistics do not show that abduction rings are at work, Bonner said. In June 1983, the FBI's unidentified dead person file was begun to match unidentified bodies with the nation's PEDOPHILES furlough, trembled in fear of authorities before being taken into custody, repeating, "I know they're going to kill me. I know they're going to kill me," according to his parents.

Helen and Dan Oakley, Lewis' mother and stepfather, said in an emo SAM NORMA KAUFFMAN MOUNTAIN ficials to suspend furloughs for all Iowa murderers and sex criminals in the wake of Lewis' arrest. They are skeptical about two first-degree robbery charges filed against their son, which police say involve crimes he committed this month while on furT loughs from the Riverview Release Center at Newton. The parents' worries for their son and their repeated efforts to return him to prison were praised by Lewis Busch of Des Moines, a counselor of criminal offenders for the Department of Correctional Services of the Fifth Judicial District. "In this instance the family accepted full responsibility for holding their son so he would go back to Newton. I praise the family, because if he would have run it probably would have been a Helen Oakley added, "I was con cerned that all the police would want to do is shoot and kill him.

"The whole family is LEWIS Please turn to Page 6B johnny pedophile who pre-eoscH fers sex with children, makes a choice. Then a messenger returns to steal the youngster from a street corner or a shopping center or in the shadow of his home. Ivan Barickman, vice president of a Minnesota-based anti-smut group called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, believes there are abduction rings at work, and he said he has seen such a catalog kept by an international organization of pedophiles. In several public appearances in Iowa, he has detailed the activity, saying abductors earn up to $25,000 per child, that after millions are made in "trading" youngsters the children are killed, some of them before cameras. He claims to have seen one such "snuff film.

Adding to the suspicion is Noreen Gosch, mother of missing West Des Moines newspaper carrier Johnny Gosch, who said witnesses saw a "job order" on the seat of a car driven by a man last seen talking to her son. Gosch PMU.UP R. LEWIS Please turn to Page 4B tional interview late last week that the family unanimously favored taking him back to prison and tbey had handcuffed their son before Des Moines police arrived to pick him up Wednesday afternoon. They said their son's arrest has been blown out of proportion and the public hasn't been told their side of the story regarding the incident Further, the parents said they regret the decision by state prison of- TI1EIHDEX Where to find it: Mthr Pge2B DrteHntknr Pact 36 OMuwm Pe DALE EDWARD! Please turn to Page SB.